Pinarayi Vijayan to be Kerala chief minister

Sonowal to take oath in Assam on Sunday, Mamata in West Bengal on May 27

Pinarayi Vijayan will be the next chief minister of Kerala. He was elected leader of the victorious Left Democratic Front (LDF) legislature party in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday.

Earlier in the day, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s Kerala committee met in the presence of party chief Sitaram Yechury. It decided to nominate 72-year-old Vijayan as the next chief minister.

CPI(M) veteran V S Achutanandan, who was also in the race for the post, was called to the state secretariat and informed about the decision. Yechury said Achutanandan is the “Fidel Castro of Kerala and will continue to guide and inspire the party.”

In Chennai, J Jayalalithaa was elected the leader of the AIADMK legislative party and is slated to take oath on Sunday. In Kolkata, Mamata Banerjee was on Friday unanimously elected as the leader of the Trinamool Congress legislature party. She is likely to take oath of office on May 27.

While coming out of the Raj Bhavan after meeting Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi, Banerjee said, “May 20 (today) is an auspicious day because it was on this day in 2011 our government took oath after the poriborton (when TMC defeated the Left in the elections). So we have come today to meet the Governor and give him a letter on behalf of our party.” Banerjee also congratulated Jayalalithaa on her victory in the Tamil Nadu polls.

As for the swearing in of Bharatiya Janata Party’s chief ministerial candidate for Assam, newly elected party legislators will meet in Guwahati on Sunday to elect Sarbananda Sonowal as the leader of the legislature party. The new BJP legislators on Friday informally met under the leadership of 53-year-old Sonowal, who is the Union minister of sports.

The new government will be sworn in on Tuesday in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah, all the chief ministers of NDA states, senior central BJP ministers, said party leader Himanta Biswa Sarma. Sonowal on Friday held a meeting with the Assam Director General of Police and other senior police officials.